# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1858_S372
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

372 Correspondence from Germany.

than the peace that death has brought it, and which, in manifold gradations
— from the naive harmlessness of the lower strata up to the "'composure
suffused with higher intelligence'" of the upper crust — has so firmly
embalmed this mummy that, untouched by the breath of life of the Holy
Spirit, it can do nothing but grin into one's face, like Lot's sons-in-law.

"It must be especially uncanny for a reader of Revelation to reflect that
abhorrence of the Roman Antichrist seems to have died out entirely on the
very hearth of the Reformation. While the newspapers triumph when Harleß,
by way of due order, is unable to restore the services of the Lutheran
church, and yet at the same time call upon the arm of the authorities
against unwelcome voices among certain opponents of the Union or of
rationalism, one can read in the Hamburger Correspondent that "'the
consecration of truth and steadfastness granted to the Catholic Church
promises her, as a result of the treaty concluded with China, a great
victory in that land.'"

"That upon paths so smoothed the Roman harlot proceeds proudly is no cause
for wonder. A conference held at Cologne at this time, attended also by
Frenchmen and Spaniards, has, according to the newspaper reports published
about it, treated Protestantism rather as a willful boy who now himself
recognizes with great shame that in the Papacy he has insulted not some old
hag but his own mother. Along with the church, it was said in the speeches
held at this assembly, the Savior himself, and along with faith in the Son
of God all religion, had vanished from it. But instead of being led back —
by this reproach, only too well deserved from apostate children of faithful
fathers, and by the crown that is being forged for the Swedish "'martyred
women'" in L'Univers, as women who were driven to bite at the Roman hemlock
solely for want of pure preaching and, in particular, of private
absolution — above all, back to the banner of scriptural doctrine that has
been abandoned to reason and false love, the Hamburg Kirchentag instead
means to water the parched field with the preachers' zeal of love, as
though the dried-up brook could overflow at will, while it keeps entirely
silent about the real harm done to the city of Zion — so entirely that it
cites, as proof of how well the protection the gospel enjoys in German
lands looks, what Austria does for the Protestants. That, to be sure, is no
wonder. For does not the Kirchentag itself help Rome tear down the ramparts
of our fortress, seeing that, as a boil upon the Union — which, however
unfairly the newspapers may mock it for this, needs the bandage of the
police so as not to be touched too roughly — it restrains the arm from
wielding the sword with which, precisely in Hamburg, the servants of Christ
once so bravely defended against every unfaithfulness in confession!"